June 1911

I wear my best gown for the picture —
white silk with seed pearls and ostrich feathers —
my hair in a loose chignon. Behind me,
Bellocq’s black scrim just covers the laundry —
tea towels, bleached and frayed, drying on the line.
I look away from his lens to appear
demure, to attract those guests not wanting
the lewd sights of Emma Johnson’s circus.
Countess writes my description for the book —
“Violet,” a fair-skinned beauty, recites
poetry and soliloquies; nightly
she performs her tableau vivant, becomes
a living statue, an object of art —
and I fade again into someone I’m not.